Blips

On the radar in books and film - Summer 2012

BOOKS

When Hell Was in Session
by Admiral Jeremiah A. Denton, Jr.
Shot down in 1965, Denton spent seven and a half years as a POW in North Vietnam. His account simultaneously reveals both the profound courage and honor of a soldier committed to God, family, and country and the utter spiritual, psychological, and civic poverty that is Communism. First published in 1975; recently republished with an updated epilogue.

Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion
& Naturalism
by Alvin Plantinga
Using pure logic sprinkled with dashes of wit and charm, Notre Dame philosopher Alvin Plantinga argues conclusively that there is (1) superficial conflict but deep concord between science and theistic belief, and (2) superficial concord but deep conflict between science and naturalism. In the final analysis, the real science/­religion conflict is between science and naturalism.

Seven Days That Divide the World: The Beginning
According to Genesis and Science
by John C. Lennox
A thoroughgoing scientist (professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford) and unapologetic Christian, Lennox has produced an elegantly simple, biblically faithful, and intellectually humble gem of a primer on the major interpretations of the Genesis creation narrative.

No, We Can't: Radical Islam, Militant Secularism,
and the Myth of Coexistence
by Robert Stearns
Of the three ideologies vying for world dominance today, two—radical Islam and militant secularism—are inherently totalitarian and incapable of peaceably coexisting with either of the others. Only one—Judeo-Christianity—provides a cultural framework wherein coexistence is possible.

The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming
Conspiracy Threatens Your Future
by U.S. Senator James Inhofe
At times a "one-man truth squad," Senator Inhofe chronicles his tireless mission to separate legitimate science from efforts to manipulate science in pursuit of a political agenda, the tactics of which have run the gamut from sloppy to nefarious. Inhofe is also instructive on the inner workings and outward effects of government.

The Pope & the CEO: John Paul II's Leadership
Lessons to a Young Swiss Guard
by Andreas Widmer
A business veteran draws out nine leadership principles he learned from his service as a personal guard to Pope John Paul II in the 1980s. An excellent life primer on applying the timeless truths of the Christian faith—put God first, do what's right, be a servant, watch your ego—to the secular workplace, this book also offers a firsthand look at a history-making pope.

FILM

The Sunset Limited
A suicidal, atheist intellectual (Tommy Lee Jones) and an uneducated, Christian ex-con (Samuel L. Jackson) discuss the great questions and quandaries of human existence. Is there purpose to life? Is there a reason to live? Is there a God? It's a full 90 minutes of masterfully written and superbly acted dialogue that leaves the viewer to choose which side of the questions to come down on.

Monumental: In Search of America's National Treasure
Kirk Cameron retraces the steps of the brave religious outcasts who founded the first colony in America in order to discover the "formula for success" that gave birth to the greatest example of civil, economic, and religious liberty (and prosperity) humanity had ever produced. Driven by a father's concern for his children and posterity, Cameron is authentically ­inspiring.

I Am
Comedy director Tom Shadyac had achieved success by any Hollywood standard when a bicycle accident left him incapacitated and he began to ponder the meaning of his life against the reality of his mortality. The result is a moving treatment of the profound beauty of life that sadly, having started from a materialist beginning, ends in a barren, self-referential, "Your life is what it is."

Nine Days That Changed the World
This film examines the monumental, world-changing impact of the nine-day visit made by Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla) to his homeland of Poland in June 1979, eight months after being elected pope. Having endured decades of iron-fisted Communist rule, the spiritually parched Poles came out by the millions to see him, sparking a revolution of conscience that culminated in the collapse of the Soviet Union a decade later.

The Founding Fathers of Early Sexualization
This Swiss documentary, now available in English, French, Dutch, and Russian, exposes the fraudulent Kinseyan science and attendant criminal pedophilia upon which, in the name of AIDS education and child rights, a Europe-wide drive is underway to mandate sex education and youth sexualization, beginning with four-year-olds.

Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today
This 1948 film of the trial of Nazi leaders by Allied nations shows, among other things, how the Nazis' own films constituted much of the prosecution's case. Widely shown in postwar Germany as part of a de-Nazification/reeducation campaign, the film was virtually unknown outside Germany until producer Sandra Schulberg recently undertook a painstaking ­restoration.